I'm a Ruin, I'll Ruin You [Closed]

[pimpcanes]

WHO| Black Tom, Molotov and Clementine; Black Tom and Beth
WHAT| The power couple kills a kid, then Tom gets shanked by a teenage girl.
WHEN| Week 6
WHERE| Near the river.
WARNINGS| Child death. Evil bastard death.

I. Molotov and Clementine

Tom's expertise is in fires and plant life. When the meteor shower moves from a brilliant display to an actual threat, he spends a few moments on a rocky outcropping of the mountain, peering over the skyline and the pattern of trees with a keen eye, looking like some sort of figurehead planted upon the stone. He licks a finger and puts it in the air, testing the wind. After a few moments, he turns to Molotov with a wicked gleam in his eye.

"If we head to that part of the river-" he gestures with his hand to a crook, the narrowest part of the watery snake that traces its way through the trees- "we'll be able to pick off anyone trying to escape from the fire when it inevitably flares up over there."

And with that, they both head down, murder on their minds, until they're settled casually at the edge of the river, waiting for people to wade across.



II. Beth

He and Molotov split up after two encounters at the river, both looking to see if any stragglers escaped across a bridge of trees or somehow swam the more dangerous currents. That's when Tom, wet to the knee and splattered with blood, holding a knife, comes across Beth and her smoke-stinking clothes. And no allies in sight.

"Look at who it is. The little lass herself." He calls to her, walks purposefully in her direction.

Comments

[pimpcanes]

Tom emerges from the undergrowth, solemn, funereal. He walks over to Molotov and rests a hand on her shoulder, the three of them in some perverse tableau of parents with child.

"She couldn't have asked for a quicker death, given what we have at our disposal," he says. Even that heavy accent fails to liven up the flatness of his tone. He crouches next to Molotov and though he doesn't grieve, he does feel the gravity of the occasion. He doesn't feel uncertainty about what they've done, but sometimes the weight of villainy seems to press down more heavily than others. Killing children that they know is one of those times.

He rankles even harder now at the 'child killer' names that have been attached to him and Molotov, as if he and she enjoyed it. He looks into Clementine's glassy eyes and something in his face goes loose and sorrowful.

[molotov]

There's a long moment where Molotov doesn't speak at all, just holds Clementine and looks at her, and then she stands and goes to the edge of the water, taking the body with her. She kneels in the mud and scoops one hand in the water, letting it run down over Clementine's cheeks as she gently wipes away the grime from that smooth, soft skin.

It takes her a moment to clean the girl up, to stroke her hair down and comb it out with gloved fingers. When she's done, Molotov takes the body away from the river to where scraggly flowers are trying to grow in the dirt, tiny and yellow and delicate. She takes Clementine's supplies, because she can hear the body collectors coming, the whirring overhead, and then passes off the pink bow and arrows to Tom.

She kisses his cheek before sprinting and disappearing up a tree, heading away to deal with it, and she doesn't think she needs to tell Tom that she'll be back shortly.

High in a tree, a few hundred yards into the woods, she faces the trunk and presses her face to her knees so that no camera can see the tightness escaping her body, the rawness of whatever bit of her heart or soul was still tender enough to hurt so much from this.

[pimpcanes]

Tom waits with Clementine's body until the machine takes it away. He sits there at the base of the tree, finding Molotov's solemnity contagious, in a way, but he never properly got to mourn Sandy when he killed her, and Dave was old enough that there was some divisive calculus that spared Tom from remorse. But he feels it here.

He can't help but imagine that Clementine is his own little girl, whom he hasn't seen in years now, who won't speak to him anymore specifically because of actions like this.

Back home, or back in the Capitol, at least, they're likely thinking this is all some sort of ruse to rehabilitate their reputation. But the truth is that for a moment Tom honestly can't breathe without his throat tightening, without it hurting on the way in and passive back out like a sigh.

He doesn't rush Molotov. He just waits.

[molotov]

It takes her a while, nearly half an hour, before she can come back down the tree. There are few enough Tributes left that Tom can keep watch on his own, keep them safe, but it's unnecessary because they're all spread out at this point anyway. When she finally comes down, she sits down next to him without a word and puts her head on his shoulder.

Her face is dry, but tight, like maybe she shed some tears into the knees of her leggings.

"Do we have any vodka left?" she asks quietly, letting her eye close as she reaches for his hand.

[pimpcanes]

He wraps his arm around her and quietly nudges a stray lock of hair from her face, one that's caught a bit on her eyelash, sealed there by a tear.

"We do." He takes her hand, the only part of her that's even a little rough and worn from climbing the trees and cutting up deer hides, and rubs his thumb over the back of it. He wants to apologize for making that call, but he truly believes it was the right one, and besides - anything he says will seem empty and self-serving. So he doesn't.

After a while he gets up, arm still around her. "Let's go drink it. There should be enough to go blind for a short while."

[molotov]

She clings to him, stays quiet until he stands the two of them up together. She nods a little, because she wants to be blind right now, is willing to accept drunken vulnerability for just a bit of that peace in her head.

"Okay."